quotes, quotations and passages on indifference

If moderation is a fault,
then indifference is a crime.

Jack Kerouac

Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never the victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.

Elie Wiesel

It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
A Testament of Hope

You know of the disease in Central Africa called sleeping sickness. . . . There also exists a sleeping sickness of the soul. Its most dangerous aspect is that one is unaware of its coming. That is why you have to be careful. As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference, the moment you become aware of the loss of a certain seriousness, of longing, of enthusiasm and zest, take it as a warning. You should realize your soul suffers if you live superficially.

Albert Schweitzer

They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.

Anton Chekhov
Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov

Thou shalt not be indifferent when you see historical lies. Thou shalt not be indifferent when the past is distorted for today’s political needs. Thou shalt not be indifferent when any minority is discriminated against. Democracy hinges on the rights of minorities being protected. Thou shalt not be indifferent when any government infringes on the existing social contract. Be faithful to this commandment, the Eleventh Commandment: thou shalt not be indifferent. Because if you are indifferent, you will not even notice when another Auschwitz descends from the sky falls upon the heads of you and your descendants.

Marian Turski
(Auschwitz survivor)

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Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.

Khalil Gibran
Sand and Foam

To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible.
If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime
is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and
persevere and never give up.

the Dalai Lama

Our country is the best country in the world. We are swimming
in prosperity and our President is the best president in the world.
We have larger apples and better cotton and faster and more beautiful
machines. This makes us the greatest country in the world. Unemployment
is a myth. Dissatisfaction is a fable. In preparatory school America
is beautiful. It is the gem of the ocean and it is too bad. It is bad
because people believe it all. Because they become indifferent.
Because they marry and reproduce and vote and they know nothing.

John Cheever

More good things in life are lost by indifference
than ever were lost by active hostility.

Robert Gordon Menzies

Indifference, Gundhalinu, is the strongest force in the universe.
It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don’t
stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and
monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn’t act, it allows.
And that’s what gives it so much power.

Joan D. Vinge
The Snow Queen

Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we
can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we
cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time.

Peter Kreeft
Prayer for Beginners

Then you notice the cherry blossoms, and you see that nature
is unaffected by all this. Poplar trees, the red butterflies,
the fragile beauty of flowers, the sun—you see
how nature is indifferent to it all.

Bob Dylan,
"The Nobel Lecture"

The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference. If you hate them,
they still have power over you. Hate takes energy. Indifference is caring
so little about them that they become nobody to you. No power over your
emotions or your day. Indifference means their actions and words no
longer affect you; they simply don’t matter. It's the ultimate freedom,
allowing you to focus your energy on the things and people who truly
deserve it. So, let go of the hate and embrace indifference.

Life is Positive

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not
ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

attributed to Elie Wiesel

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because
I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and
did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came
for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then
they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller

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What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means “no difference.” A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.

What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one’s sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?

Of course, indifference can be tempting—more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person’s pain and despair.

Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.

In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony, one does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses.

But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor—never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.

The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees—not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century’s wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.

Elie Wiesel
excerpted from White House speech, 1999

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination
from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy,
indifference, and undernourishment.

Robert M. Hutchins

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could
have acted; the indifference of those who should have known
better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most;
that has made it possible for evil to triumph.

Haile Selassie

Text in painting:
Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you.
Fear not your friends, for they can only betray you.
Fear only the indifferent, who permit killers
and betrayers to walk safely on earth.

Attributed to Edward Yashinski,
a Yiddish poet who survived the Holocaust.
Painting by Fritz Hirschberger